{"id":256005,"date":"2026-07-31T02:49:06","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T02:49:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/256005\/"},"modified":"2026-07-31T02:49:06","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T02:49:06","slug":"bethlehem-vigil-honors-civil-rights-icon-john-lewis-and-legacy-of-good-trouble-bethlehem-area","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/256005\/","title":{"rendered":"Bethlehem vigil honors civil rights icon John Lewis and legacy of ‘good trouble’ | Bethlehem Area"},"content":{"rendered":"

BETHLEHEM, Pa. – On-and-off rain didn’t stop community members from gathering at the Bethlehem Rose Garden Thursday night for a vigil honoring civil rights icon John Lewis<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The “Good Trouble Lives On<\/a>” event brought together local artists, faith leaders, elected officials, and residents to reflect on Lewis’s legacy and his lasting impact on civic engagement.<\/p>\n

The vigil was originally scheduled for mid-July to align with the anniversary of Lewis\u2019s passing in 2020, but organizers postponed the gathering due to unhealthy air quality from regional wildfire smoke.<\/p>\n

Organizers with Indivisible Lehigh Valley Bethlehem<\/a> (ILVB) framed the rescheduled gathering around the national campaign theme: “Teach! Reach! Preach!”; a call focused civic engagement rooted in the civil rights movement.<\/p>\n

“He led a march over the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, and was almost bludgeoned to death. His legacy has been one of moral courage, but also forgiveness and reconciliation and absolutely voting rights,” Indivisible Lehigh Valley Bethlehem lead organizer, Brooke McDermott, said.<\/p>\n

Throughout the evening, local performers used music and spoken word to connect Lewis\u2019s civil rights work to modern community involvement.<\/p>\n

Poet Deirdre Van Walters, board president of Basement Poetry, led attendees in a call-and-response piece highlighting heritage and unity.<\/p>\n

“I carry our ancient energy. It lives within my soul,” Van Walters read to the crowd. “Do you know that we come from love and that loving each other should be our goals?”<\/p>\n

Attendees also paused to listen to archived recordings of Lewis recalling what inspired him to join the civil rights movement as a teenager in Alabama.<\/p>\n

“As a little child, I tasted the bitter fruits of racism, and I didn’t like it,” Lewis said in the recording. “The action of Rosa Parks, the words and leadership of Martin Luther King Jr., inspired me to find a way to get in the way. And I got in trouble; good trouble, necessary trouble.”<\/p>\n

Musical performances by Rev. Kari Holmes energized the crowd under rain-slicked umbrellas.<\/p>\n

“We’re going to show up, we’re going to show out, we’re going to stand up, we’re going to speak out and we are going to show up at the polls like never before,” Holmes told the gathering.<\/p>\n

Leaders encouraged everyone who braved the elements to carry that same spirit of civic engagement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BETHLEHEM, Pa. – On-and-off rain didn’t stop community members from gathering at the Bethlehem Rose Garden Thursday night…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":256006,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[214,153,155,154,1391],"class_list":["post-256005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-_homepage_top_stories","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-bethlehem-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256005\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}